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Effingham County gets $30,000 for fish kill

Effingham County received $30,000 from King America Finishing as an out-of-court settlement for the 2011 Ogeechee River fish kill.

Papers detailing the settlement were made public on Jan. 15. The deal was for $49,000, with the county getting $30,000 and Savannah law firm Oliver Maner getting $19,000.

Interim County Administrator Toss Allen said the 39-percent fee to the law firm was high, but that’s because of the way the agreement was structured.

He said the deal called for the county to not expend any funds in attempting to get money from King America. The law firm was to take its expenses and fees from any settlement that might be reached.

“We did it that way so we wouldn’t have to pay up front,” he said.

County commissioners agreed to the settlement on Oct. 22. The amount of money was not made public until Jan. 15, when the county got the final papers back signed.

Allen said commissioners have not decided what they’ll do with the money. He said they have talked about using it for a project near the river.

“The preference would be to put it back where it was derived from,” Allen said.

One possibility would be to improve the boat landing at Steel Bridge, he said. Another would be to purchase land for another boat landing.

Or the money might go to improve the Atlas Sand mine property, which the county purchased in 2002 to be used for recreation, but which has sat dormant. Commissioners agreed in November to spend $50,000 to look into what it would take for the sand mine to be used for recreation.

The county decided to seek money from King America last fall because Commission Chairman Wendall Kessler had heard that other property owners were getting money.

Kessler said today that he would like to see the money spent on a project near the river.

The county owns Steel Bridge Landing, where Ga. 119 crosses the Ogeechee River. The property is a little more than two acres and has a pavilion and boat landing.

The boat landing was closed in May 2011 when 38,000 fish on the Ogeechee died. The 70-mile kill zone began just below King America Finishing’s discharge pipe in Screven County.

State regulators blamed the fish kill on a bacterial infection, but also determined that the company had failed to update its wastewater discharge permit to include a fire retardant processing operation installed five years earlier.

King America agreed in November to pay $2.5 million to the Ogeechee Riverkeeper to fund continuing efforts to protect the black water river. Terms of that settlement also include increased monitoring and tighter pollution limits.

The manufacturer also has invested about half a million dollars and pledged another $2.5 million in pollution control upgrades.